


Turncoats

by The_Floof



Series: The Jersey Reclamation Project [1]
Category: Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: Body Dysmorphia, Body Horror, Canon-divergent Caine and Antediluvian lore, Childe/Sire Bond(s), Gay Male Character, Implied/Referenced Abuse, LGBT, Mutual Vinculum, Nonbinary Character, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Requiem Clans, Some Requiem lore but it's mostly Masquerade
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:54:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26910235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Floof/pseuds/The_Floof
Summary: A war for the state of New Jersey with intrigue, mysteries, and deadly mind games.
Relationships: Male/Agender - Relationship
Series: The Jersey Reclamation Project [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1963423





	Turncoats

They stood around a rotting wooden round table, dimly lit in the basement of some inner city warehouse whose address they'd burn just as soon as they left the building again. Seven vampires, each of a differing clan, took roll amongst themselves.

The first, "Chiara Offreduccio," was a woman of medium stature. Most mortal eyes wouldn't have been able to pick a single defining feature on her body, but in a room full of vampires, the darkness shone just as clear as daylight. Her pixie cut hair displayed an ombre between brown at its roots and cherry red at its silken tips. Her skin was reminiscent of an almond's interior, pale and smooth. She wore a baggy, black jacket over a tight-fitting red t-shirt and a thick, brown utility belt over a pair of ripped, white skinny jeans. Finally, at the bottom, a pair of maroon high-top running shoes, laced up by golden-brown strings. "Ask me something only **I** would know the answer to." Those green eyes of hers stared intently at each member of the eclectic group of people in their warehouse, one at a time.

"Is Offreduccio your real family name?" asked a young-looking man on the other side of the table.

Chiara's answer was but a curt, "No."

"What _is_ it?" he pressed, as he leaned his rounded face into the golden light of a single weak bulb above the center of their table.

Chiara's red-painted lips stretched in a smirk. "I've never told you that," she proclaimed. The other six nodded their heads, satisfied with her answer.

They each went around in a circle from there. Second, an Egyptian woman. Her rose-colored headscarf bore a pink, circular clasp which sat near the back of her jaw, above a plush, pink turtleneck and long, white skirt.

That young, round-faced man asked a question of her, as well: "Shani, why don't you tell us everything?" The man shoved his hands into the pockets of burnt orange sweatpants, skipping the front pocket of his graffiti-designed hoodie. "If the Tzimisce didn't do all its homework, we'll find a contradiction somewhere in what you're saying."

Shani's steely sienna eyes narrowed, unable to contain their shaking rage as they shifted between members of the rotten round table. "We should go back to Chiara, then," she countered. "Answering a single trick question like that cannot be enough."

"It's enough for _now_ ," the man in orange replied. "Knowing Chiara, she'd tell the damn thing her true name, just to make sure it'd mess up when we asked the question. Of _course_ , if it gathered information through _auspex_ , instead of _torture_ , we'll need to ask _everyone_ more questions about themselves and hope it forgot a detail." Then, he conceded, "Chiara, too, but I don't think replacing the Baron would be such a good idea. Not unless the fiend found itself backed into a corner..." He pointed his gaze toward the concrete ceiling above, while the gears turned inside of his head. "But we'll see."

Shani shifted, one arm in the other as troubled eyes moved toward the cracks between the boards below. "All right, fine." She took a deep, shaking breath, then began her explanation. "My name is Shani Haik," she told the group. "I am a Sweeper of Jersey City, Ashirra in only the religious sense. I am a Majnoon from Egypt, born in 1852 and turned in 1876. I can hear whispers, that one of us has already been devoured, but they do not tell me _which_." Her eyes narrowed yet again, this time toward the sky beyond the basement ceiling. "If these premonitions would be _more exact_ , perhaps we might _skip_ this meeting altogether."

"If your psychic powers pointed straight for one of us," mentioned a pudgy, ginger man in a comfortable green sweater at Shani's left-hand side, " _You'd_ be the Fiend. The Madness Network is _nothing_ if not _vague_." Chiara nodded with the man's words, then motioned for Shani to continue.

"Though I do not know who it _is_ ," Shani started on another topic, "Leo, Preston and Chiara, I would like to hear from most."

Chiara's eyes rolled. "Anyone have a mirror?" she asked, her hand stretched out to the center. A warm-brown hand, manicured in yellow-green, placed a white compact in hers. Chiara flipped open the lid, then turned its mirror so that each other person could note how it was happy to show the wood and concrete around her, but her form was completely absent from its image. "A Tzimisce would show up in the mirror," she reminded everyone, then slid the compact back. "Thank you, Corinne."

"We can agree that Chiara's in the clear?" the man in orange asked, then allowed declarations of agreement to cycle through the group.

"The whispers told me that one of my closest friends had been staked, baked and replaced," Shari continued. "Leo and Preston have not spoken with me in over a week--"

"Why are we taking the rambling voices in a Malkavian's mind like they're the gospel truth?" asked a chiseled blond, in a navy blue, ill fitting suit, at the left-hand side of the man in orange. "Maybe there hasn't been _any_ replacement and the Malkavian is just a _nutter_?"

The man in orange nodded along, then turned to the woman in pink, the expression in his eyes _light_ and _playful_. "Shani, your predictions have about... 95% accuracy, don't they? Wouldn't it be weird if we _didn't_ gather?"

Chiara pulled a long, sturdy, thick piece of wood from underneath the table. "Preston," she addressed the man in orange. "It doesn't prove anything if Leo doesn't know. I'd like you to go next. We will get to everyone, then decide. No accusations until then."

Preston's coal-black eyes did their best to drill holes through Leo's smiling face, but he did as he was asked. "Preston Lee," he announced himself. "I'm from Boston, got turned at 16, then spent the next twenty years rising to the top of my chantry." He huffed. "I don't have _any_ official standing in this city. The most likely people for that thing to impersonate are going to be _officials_. That means Leo, Rick and Vafa. There's nothing it can do with a Sweeper, Chiara is cleared, Corinne is a _refugee_ , and _I'm_ only here because I'm one of Shani's _friends_." He stepped back from the table. "I've made my case. Vafa, you have the floor."

He turned toward a woman dressed all in black, whose dark, wavy locks fell like a sheet behind her head. With a contemplative look written all over her cool-brown complexioned face, she pressed her thin-framed glasses up to the bridge of her nose. "Thank you, Mr. Lee," she said, her voice cool and calm as a bubbling spring. "Between Richard and Leo, Richard was quick to validate Shani's connection to the Madness Network, while Leo dismissed it out of hand... Well, perhaps Leo has always felt that way." She kept her eye on the man in the blue suit, then smiled, ever so lightly. "I am Vafa, of no family, of no clan, of no country. I am Chiara's Emissary, and over the last week, she and I have not separated."  
  
The man in the ill-fitting suit, Leo, scoffed. "Why don't we just make this faster?" he suggested. "We all do our clans' abilities, and that'll clear us. Like Chiara with the mirror." Then, without waiting for a response, the Gangrel shifted into a ferocious lion, then expectantly swept his tail across the dusty concrete. The remaining six waited for him to shift back, then Chiara began to walk the circumference of their meeting area. She made a single loop around the area, whilst each and every one of them prepared their own displays...

Then, she returned to her own spot, without the stake in her hand. "None of you turn around," she told the group, as the whites of her eyes slowly clouded over. "Whoever does is getting staked."

Corinne's yellow-green nails pressed against her white, ruffled blouse.

Chiara then shut her eyes, and began to explain, as the darkness overtook even the dim bulb overhead. As a collective, their vampiric eyes lost sight of everything but the abyss. "You would expect, from Clan Gangrel and Clan Brujah... that they would be people of action, not discussion or debate." Loud rumbling noises interrupted her monologue, followed by a thud and a quick clear of her throat. "Oh, that was fast. _Any_ way, can anyone tell me... Which of us share powers with Clan Tzimisce?"

Corinne's voice pierced through the darkness, "That's Vafa, Shani and Preston with Auspex and Leo with Animalism." Then, after a short pause, she continued that thought herself. "If he wanted to prove his innocence, why would Leo use..." Then, in an instant, the light returned to the room. Six of the seven remained stock still at the table, while the blond lay face-down on the floor, just shy of the door, with the barest hint of a stake poking out of his back.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: I now hate this chapter, but I'm moving on anyway.


End file.
